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After another week of fruitless supercommittee talks, the deficit panel appears no closer to a deal before its looming Thanksgiving deadline. Leaders are gloomy, and other members are heading home for the holiday week, leaving the panel’s 12 bipartisan negotiators in Washington to try to salvage an agreement.

POLITICO’s Manu Raju and Jake Sherman report: “House Speaker John Boehner dropped by a D.C. fundraiser Wednesday appearing downtrodden and pessimistic. After 2½ months of painstaking negotiations, the deficit supercommittee he helped create was nowhere near a deal. The committee had a ‘long way to go’ and they’d have to ‘pull a rabbit out of a hat’ to succeed, Boehner said, according to people in attendance. Boehner, the public optimist over the past few months, was right. The mood of pessimism is infecting the Capitol. A deal, aides and lawmakers say, is simply out of reach. Democratic and Republican leaders have begun to spread word among colleagues that they believe the supercommittee will fall short of its goal to find $1.2 trillion in cuts, increasing the likelihood that the 2012 elections may be the only way to resolve the deepening partisan divisions that have prevented Congress time and time again from getting a handle on its finances.” http://politi.co/rEdk4j

-- Supercommittee member Pat Toomey has gone from staunch conservative to compromiser, I write for POLITICO: “When Republican leader Mitch McConnell tapped Sen. Pat Toomey for a seat on the deficit supercommittee, it was largely seen as a symbolic nod to the tea party, which swept him into office just a year ago. But a funny thing happened when the seemingly intransigent tea party darling walked into the most powerful negotiating room in Washington: Toomey turned into a key compromiser. For a freshman backbencher, the supercommittee has become a star-making platform to prove himself not just inside the Senate but in the Republican Party as a whole — and to voters in Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania who elected him by a small margin last year. Outside the supercommittee room, the $1.5 trillion GOP deficit plan authored by Toomey — the former head of the powerful anti-tax group Club for Growth — has provided political cover for Republicans mulling over tax hikes typically abhorrent to their base. ‘If we can have the opportunity to generate the tremendous economic growth that has come from the tax reform, with simplifying the code, and avoid the biggest tax increase in American history, … I think that’s worth paying the price,’ Toomey told POLITICO. ‘If I were king, I wouldn’t do it this way; I’d do it differently. But I’m not king.’” http://politi.co/rFtE6Y

-- A visibly tired and tieless Toomey told CNN this morning: A deal “is still possible. It’s not going to be easy. Time is running short but time hasn’t run out yet. We’re here, we’re working, we’re talking. … I think it’s too soon to draw that conclusion [there will be no deal]. We still hope we’ll be able to get something done.” Toomey said he was in a room with Democratic negotiators just “12 hours ago,” and would be working through the weekend. Asked about the chances of a deal on a scale of 1 to 10, he replied: “I’ve never been a gambler. I’ve never made any money at a casino. I’m not going to put a number on it.”

-- The economic consequences of failure are starting to creep through, the Wall Street Journal’s Janet Hook and Neftali Bendavid note in a front-page story this morning: “At least publicly, members of the committee were loath to admit defeat and said an agreement remained possible. But fresh worries over the possibility of deadlock in Washington, along with concerns about Europe's sovereign debt, contributed to a sharp afternoon downturn in U.S. stocks, underscoring the risk of financial and economic fallout from a congressional failure to reduce the deficit.” http://on.wsj.com/uOvlxX

--The New York Times’ Robert Pear and Jennifer Steinhauer set the scene: “From early morning on Thursday, when the sun illuminated Statuary Hall, until the evening, when the Rotunda was dappled with the fading yellow light, members of the deficit panel shuffled across the marble floors of the Capitol, from meeting room to office to the speaker’s private quarters. Lawmakers were often trailed by a swarm of journalists, tape recorders in hand, hoping for a bit of information. Generally, there was nothing. The Senate chaplain, Barry C. Black, set the tone when he opened the Senate on Thursday, seeking divine help for the deadlocked committee. Mr. Black asked God to ‘eradicate false ambition,’ ‘remove distracting priorities from the minds of our senators,’ and ‘guide the supercommittee in its challenging work.’ Committee members and party leaders gave conflicting accounts of the talks. It was unclear if they were engaged in serious negotiations or just making a show of negotiating to shield themselves from blame if the talks sputtered to an end without agreement.” http://nyti.ms/sdDy6Q

-- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) slammed his colleagues for failing to come to an agreement: “’We’re at a time in American history where everybody's afraid — afraid of losing their job — to move toward the center. A deadline is insufficient,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to have people who are willing to move.’ As he spoke, Baucus grew angrier and more emotional, invoking the memory of his nephew and more than 4,000 other Americans who have died in the Iraq war,” The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery and Rosalind S. Helderman write. “‘Compared with the thousands who have given their lives in service to this country, I think it’s tragic and it speaks volumes’ that politicians in Congress and the White House are ‘too worried about their jobs in order to reach an agreement,’ Baucus said. ‘Because if we could reach an agreement, it’s going to upset a lot of people on both sides. But not enough people are willing to do it, even though it would be the right thing for the country.’” http://wapo.st/ruvbCW

“SUCK IT UP” -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has some advice for the supercommittee. Speaking at a submarine plant in Connecticut, the former California congressman said, according to Reuters: “I really urge the leaders of Congress - I urge this committee: Suck it up. Do what's right for the country. I think the country wants these people to govern - that's why we elect people, is to govern, not to just survive in office." http://reut.rs/rBaxS3

TEA PARTY “HEARING” GETS THE BOOT -- Slate’s Dave Weigel writes: “More than 100 Tea Partiers had traveled to the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill to witness the results of a supercommittee-style Tea Party Debt Commission. They entered the building. They walked to the hearing room. They found their seats. Then they got kicked out. Security snatched placards off the podium. Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah freshman emceeing the show, tried to save it. That didn’t work, so Lee stood in the center of the room and announced an exodus to a conservative college’s auditorium, a few blocks away. … Lee explained that FreedomWorks, the Tea Party group that came up with this commission, had referred to the event as a ‘hearing,’ and the Senate Rules Committee had objected to it, thus the sudden and unexpected purge.” http://slate.me/ssoVYV And here’s video of the Tea Party group getting the boot: http://youtu.be/EfLq_PsoniA

THE ROGERS REPORT -- “Congress gave final approval Thursday to a $182 billion domestic spending bill which marks a first down payment toward the August debt accords and rare return to some semblance of regular order for the tattered appropriations process. The action came as House-Senate farm bill negotiators signaled they were near agreement on a five-year plan that will meet deficit-reduction targets and can be added to whatever budget package is reported from the joint supercommittee next week. … Covering major science agencies and five Cabinet departments, the $182 billion appropriations measure—really three bills in one—cleared the House on a 298-121 vote Thursday afternoon, followed by a 70-30 Senate roll call just hours later in the evening. The ease of passage belied the struggle that accompanied different components over the last six months, but it is the closest thing that Congress has seen in two years that resembles the once routine procedures for annual appropriations.” http://politi.co/uZE7CS

THE ONE THING ‘DR. NO’ WON’T CUT -- The Oklahoman’s Chris Casteel reports on fiscally conservative Sen. Tom Coburn’s fight to avoid cuts to the Government Accountability Office: “‘If the mission of GAO is compromised by excessive cuts, where else can Congress turn to find unbiased data to improve programs and save money?’ Coburn asked. Coburn, R-Muskogee, relies heavily on the GAO's research for his own reports on government waste and fraud. … But Coburn said the GAO's staff has been cut by more than 2,000 people since 1992 and is facing cuts of up to 8 percent next year. The number of reports issued by the GAO dropped from 1,842 in 2000 to 961 last year.” http://bit.ly/usNSRQ

SOLYNDRA SKEWERING -- “House Republicans are fighting to keep Solyndra alive,” Darren Samuelsohn reports for POLITICO. “After nearly five hours Thursday grilling Energy Secretary Steven Chu over the California solar company’s $535 million loan guarantee, GOP lawmakers said their probe into the Obama administration’s energy poster child would continue by extracting internal West Wing documents and possibly holding hearings with current and former White House officials. Several Republicans said they are interested in hearing from former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, former White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner and other senior West Wing aides. Rep. Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican leading the investigation, also said Chu’s testimony was so unsatisfying that he thought it time for President Barack Obama to fire the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. ‘I think the secretary is unaware of so many things that have happened that would question his financial ability and his management of very complex corporations. So I just think he has failed the test,’ Stearns told reporters. White House spokesman Eric Schultz responded to Stearns by saying that Chu ‘has the president’s full confidence, and we are all proud of his tenure as secretary of energy.’” http://politi.co/tg5Wvn

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 18, 2011, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of what’s happening today in Congress. Please send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com, sherman@politico.com or jallen@politico.com. If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC. Jake is @jakesherman, Jon is @jonallendc and Robillard is @PoliticoKevin. My new followers include, but are not limited to, @bridgettfrey and @mbh1165.

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AROUND THE HILL – House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson speaks to reporters about jobs and the economy at 10:30 a.m.

TODAY IN CONGRESS – The House is in at 9 a.m. and votes on a constitutional balanced budget amendment and a bill to amend the National Labor Relations Board. The Senate’s in at 9 a.m. and resumes consideration of the defense authorization bill, though no votes are scheduled.

CANTOR CUTTING ACCESS? -- “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is considering ending his weekly sit-down with the Capitol Hill press corps,” Jake Sherman reports for POLITICO. “The practice has long been a vestige of Washington reporting, but a recent dust-up with national television outlets has prompted the Virginia Republican’s staff to reconsider how they interact with the media. Instead, the No. 2 Republican and his staff is mulling selecting reporters he considers to be fair for smaller interviews. And when he wants to make news more broadly, he will use one of the Capitol’s TV studios — a far more controlled environment. … The dust-up refers to Tuesday’s pen and pad, where Cantor allowed CBS’s “60 Minutes” program to film the usually camera free sit-down for a piece they are doing on the lawmaker. The majority leader’s staff sat down with representatives from the radio and television gallery this week to discuss the issue. Other television outlets wanted to pool camera resources if one network was allowed in.” http://politi.co/rQm21Y

PELOSI V. PERRY, ROUND TWO -- @NancyPelosiresponded to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s debate challenge over Twitter: “Re: Gov. Perry--Monday I’ll be in Portland. Later visiting labs in CA. That's 2. I can’t remember the 3rd thing.” But Perry’s camp didn’t ignore the slight. His campaign manager, Dave Carney, fired back (also using the Twitter machine): “Is Nancy Pelosi so irrelevant , that the day Super Committee "the Plan" is released, she is fund raising out west? Status Quo has got to go!”

PALIN TAKES AIM AT CONGRESS -- The former Alaska governor picks up where the Hoover Institution’s Peter Schweitzer left off in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “How Congress Occupied Wall Street”: “How do politicians who arrive in Washington, D.C. as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires? How do they miraculously accumulate wealth at a rate faster than the rest of us? How do politicians' stock portfolios outperform even the best hedge-fund managers'? … Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days. … [L]aws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. … The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace this. The tea party's mission has always been opposition to waste and crony capitalism, and the Occupy protesters must realize that Washington politicians have been ‘Occupying Wall Street’ long before anyone pitched a tent in Zuccotti Park.”http://on.wsj.com/svbDQd

--The Sunlight Foundation’s John Wonderlich notes some concerns about the STOCK Act, which aims to prevent insider trading by members: Section 3“changes the House Ethics manual to prohibit Members from disclosing ‘material nonpublic information’ about ‘any pending or prospective legislation’ that the Member has ‘has reason to believe that the information will be used to buy or sell the securities of such publicly traded company.’ This is probably a well-intended provision: Members shouldn't disclose legislative information in order to give secret signals that affect markets. But the way this provision is drafted would effectively prohibit most disclosure of nonpublic information about legislation. Any time a Member describes things moving through Congress, there's a good chance that it could affect a publicly traded company, and there's reason to believe that the information will be used to buy or sell securities. We should prohibit Members inappropriately using insider information. And we should also protect their ability to share information about Congressional activity. This provision appears to achieve the first, but at the expense of the second.” Despite this, Wonderlich writes that Sunlight supports the legislation. http://bit.ly/tFtDko

DO THIS AND DO THAT -- “Seven Republican House Members have a message for the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction: Keep all revenue options on the table, but do not raise taxes,” Roll Call’s Daniel Newhauser reports. “The muddled message comes today as Reps. John Duncan (Tenn.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Mike Kelly (Pa.), Ron Paul (Texas), Phil Roe (Tenn.),Marlin Stutzman (Ind.) and John Sullivan (Okla.) signed on to a Republican Study Committee letter to the super committee urging members not to raise taxes but also signed the ‘go-big’ coalition letter earlier this month encouraging the panel to put all options on the table. … The RSC letter, headed by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), states that the 72 Republican Members who signed it believe the super committee should under no circumstances approve a deal that includes tax increases, which they call ‘irresponsible and dangerous.’” http://bit.ly/sIHND8

BANK-BASHING AND BIPARTISAN APPOINTMENT ON TRACK -- The Wall Street Journal’s Victoria McGrane reports: “In a rare display of bipartisanship, the Senate appears likely to easily confirm [former Kansas City Fed President Hoenig to a six-year term as the vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., an agency that gained significant powers over the nation's biggest banks under last year's Dodd-Frank financial overhaul. Mr. Hoenig breezed through his confirmation hearing Thursday, lauded by senators from both parties. The choice has rattled Wall Street executives. Mr. Hoenig believes some banks are so big that they are a risk to the financial system, and that taxpayers might need to bail them out in the future, just as they rescued big financial firms in the 2008 crisis. Mr. Hoenig believes there is only one way to end this phenomenon of ‘too big to fail.’ ‘We must break up the largest banks,’ he said in a February speech. … The enthusiasm for Mr. Hoenig, who is not affiliated with either party, comes at a time when politicians of both parties are trying to harness populist anger at Wall Street rather than get clobbered by it. Mr. Hoenig's nomination also illustrates how lawmakers are moving beyond bank-bashing rhetoric and taking concrete policy actions that could affect the financial industry for years to come.” http://on.wsj.com/s5v2AM

BREWER REBUFFED -- “The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday evening that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer had illegally impeached the state’s top redistricting official, a blow to Republicans who had sought to overturn the state’s line-drawing process. With the decision, the court reinstated Colleen Mathis, the chairwoman of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, who had been tasked with overseeing the state’s congressional remap. The court ruled she had not demonstrated ‘substantial neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office, or inability to discharge the duties of office.’ Earlier this month, Brewer instigated the impeachment of Mathis, a move that set off a legal scramble and threw the state’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process into chaos. Mathis was removed from her post in a party-line vote in the state Senate. Republicans — led by Brewer — had argued that Mathis had willfully skirted protocol in drafting the congressional lines, including rules that the commission must hold all its negotiations in public meetings, that had been established when voters approved the redistricting commission more than a decade ago. The GOP also argued that Mathis drafted a map with an eye toward favoring Democrats. http://politi.co/tunsWi

THURSDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Brian Smith, a defense analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, was first to correctly answer that Abraham Lincoln was born in what today is Kentucky’s Congressional District 2, represented by freshman Republican Brett Guthrie.

TODAY’S TRIVIA – Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) has held several jobs : He led the Club for Growth, served in the House and worked on Wall Street. But what kind of business did he start with his two brothers in Allentown, Penn.?

Email me at swong@politico.com. First person to answer correctly gets a mention in tomorrow’s Huddle. And if you’ve got any good trivia questions, send those to me as well.